Create your own Puma kicks

Take to an iPad and make your mark at the newly launched Creative Factory

The newly launched Creative Factory from Puma allows patrons to wear art on their shoes

You may never be as artistic as Picasso, Narendra Kumar or that other guy who cut off his own ear. You may also rely quite a lot on external influences (your mother/girlfriend), to pick the clothes you wear. But if you’re an individualist, itching to express your creative potential, take your elbows off the drawing board and head to a Puma store. Canvas, clothes and post-impressionism be damned. Carve your niche on a shoe.

Sport and lifestyle company, Puma has launched the Puma Creative Factory that allows patrons to design their own shoes. It's not a new concept — Reebok and Nike offer similar services online – but the company is the first to launch this service exclusively on the iPad.

We got the opportunity to see the 3D view of the shoe on the app at the Puma Creative Factory launch in Hard Rock Café, Mumbai recently. We also got quite fidgety mixing and matching colours and fabrics.

“Don’t get excited by the novelty of all the options and use 10 different colours in your design,” Rajiv Mehta, MD of Puma told GQ over a platter of mixed starters. “Lots of people experiment and then realize that it looks ugly and doesn’t have an identity of its own.”

So if you want to play safe and still have a kick-ass design, pick two or three colours, dab on some fabrics and simply see where things go. Also, since the app is still unavailable commercially, you will need to go into a Puma store and spend at least 30 minutes with the iPad.

Don’t fret if you don’t get it right the first 10 times because the stores will save your designs exclusively for you. But if you do like what you’ve created and want to get a second opinion, the Puma staff will be quite happy to email the design to you.

The launch event in Mumbai had live demos of the iPad app along with a lot of other fun activities that included booths to spray paint shoes on canvas and designing your own t-shirt. In attendance were the likes of hair stylist Sapna Bhavnani, TV presenter and cougher at large Mandira Bedi and model turned actress Suchitra Pillai.

The event also saw designer Narendra Kumar demonstrate the app on a larger than life shoe stapled to the railings of the balcony with the help of an iPad and a projector.

If you’re not feeling very creative or colourful today but absolutely must have a pair of these kicks, stick with some of the special designs created by professionals like Nari and fashion photographer, Darren Centofanti among others. But if you want to create something unique, prance along to the store because the Puma Creative Factory app is definitely your oyster.From Rs. 7,000 to Rs. 8,000 at Puma stores all over India